Very High Blood Pressure
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Very High Blood Pressure
It can sometimes be difficult to lower very high blood pressure. Medications don't always work as effectively as they should. High blood pressure symptoms may not always show themselves in their true light.
No-one really knows just how many of us suffer from inadequately controlled high blood pressure but it some research specialists think that blood pressure treatment goals are not achieved properly in up to forty percent of patients.
This kind of poor control is sometimes called resistant high blood pressure or resistant hypertension
Resistant high blood pressure is more common in patients aged over 60.
Some patients fail to gain good blood pressure control despite taking three different drugs at the same time.
Here's how your doctor (and of course you yourself) should approach things if your blood pressure is not responding well to treatment.
It can sometimes be difficult to lower very high blood pressure. Medications don't always work as effectively as they should. High blood pressure symptoms may not always show themselves in their true light.
No-one really knows just how many of us suffer from inadequately controlled high blood pressure but it some research specialists think that blood pressure treatment goals are not achieved properly in up to forty percent of patients.
This kind of poor control is sometimes called resistant high blood pressure or resistant hypertension
Resistant high blood pressure is more common in patients aged over 60.
Some patients fail to gain good blood pressure control despite taking three different drugs at the same time.
Here's how your doctor (and of course you yourself) should approach things if your blood pressure is not responding well to treatment.
- You need to take an honest and careful look about how well you are sticking to your treatment plan
- You need to look at things in your lifestyle that could be making lower blood pressure harder to achieve (salt, caffeine, dairy produce, obesity, alcohol, lack of exercise)
- Your doctor may need to search for a treatable underlying cause or other disease which could be triggering your high blood pressure
- It will almost certainly be worth having things checked on a 24 hour ambulatory blood pressure device - asking the question of how high your blood pressure really is (or isn't) in day to day situations
- Your doctor needs to review your drugs (blood pressure and otherwise) to look for any that might be interacting with each other and causing a higher blood pressure reading
In my own experience - both as a doctor and as a blood pressure sufferer - it's often simple changes in lifestyle that lead to the biggest benefits.
